Saydun ( ar, صيدون) was a Palestinian village in the Ramle Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on April 6, 1948, during

Operation Nachshon Operation Nachshon ( he, מבצע נחשון, ''Mivtza Nahshon'') was a Jewish military operation during the 1948 war. Lasting from 5–16 April 1948, its objective was to break the Siege of Jerusalem by opening the Tel Aviv – Jerusalem road ...

. It was located 9 km south of Ramla on the east bank of Wadi Saydun.

History

In 1838, it was noted as a large village whose inhabitants were

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

. In 1863 Victor Guérin found it to have about 200 inhabitants, He further noted: "Sitting on a low hill, [] the houses are built of adobe. Lacking wood and coal, the Arabs of this locality, as well as many others in Palestine, make fire with sun-dried cow dung in the shape of rounded clods. They feed on water at a well of modern date, because the ancient well is dry." "This village [] must certainly succeed an ancient village". An Ottoman Empire, Ottoman village list from about 1870 counted 35 houses and a population of 148, though the population count included men, only. In 1882, the

PEF PEF, PeF, or Pef may stand for the following abbreviations: * Palestine Exploration Fund * Peak expiratory flow * PEF Private University of Management Vienna * Pentax raw file (see Raw image format) * Perpetual Education Fund * Perpetual Emigratio ...

's '' Survey of Western Palestine'' described the place as: "a small village of the same class" (as

Shahma Shahma ( ar, شحمة) was a Palestinian Arab village located southwest of Ramla. Depopulated on the eve of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the village lands today form part of a fenced-in area used by the Israeli Air Force.Khalidi, 1992, p. 415 Loc ...

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...

conducted by the British Mandate authorities, ''Saidum'' had a population of 124 inhabitants, all

s,Barron, 1923, Table VII, Sub-district of Ramleh, p
21
/ref> increasing in the 1931 census to 174, still all Muslims, in a total of 35 houses.Mills, 1932, p
23
In the 1945 statistics the village had a population of 210 Muslims with a total of 7,487

dunums A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

of land. 49 dunums of land was used for plantations and irrigable land, 5,247 dunums were used for cereals, while 15 dunams were classified as built-up public areas. Khulda 1942

Post 1948

In 1992 the village site was described: "Cactuses and numerous grapevines grow on the site. Only one stone house remains; it has a flat roof and a round-arched door and is used for storage. The surrounding land are used for agriculture by Israelis."Khalidi, 1992, p. 414

References

Bibliography

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External links

Welcome To SaydunSaydun
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16
IAAWikimedia commons
from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center {{Authority control Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Ramla